A substantial part of this second issue of the IFC Bulletin is devoted to the contribution of the Irving Fisher Committee to the 52nd Session of the International Statistical Institute, to be held during 10-18 August 1999, in Helsinki. As announced by Mr. Emerico Zautzik, Chairman of the Committee, in his letter accompanying the first issue of the IFC Bulletin, the following topics have been selected:
- Globalisation of Markets and Cross-Border Holdings of Financial Assets;
- The central bank’s function in the field of statistics
There has been a very positive response to the call by Mr. Zautzik for contributions, and many individuals and organisations have indicated that they will provide papers for the session. Several authors have already sent an abstract of their promised paper; these abstracts are presented in this issue of the Bulletin. We intend to continue the publication of abstracts in the next issue.
According to information received so far, there will be three sessions on central-bank statistics in Helsinki: one for invited papers (on the first topic) and two for contributed papers (on both topics).
Readers with an interest in the theoretical aspects of indices might benefit from an article by Dr. Arthur Vogt on “Two New Formulae for Performance Measurement based on Irving Fisher’s Price Index”; these formulae have been derived by simultaneously investigating capital and cash-flow performance measures.
We are also obliged to Dr. Vogt for his suggestion that the IFC Bulletin serve as the vehicle to reprint a series of articles on economics, written by Irving Fisher in the late twenties and early thirties for trade union members. This series comprises more than 80 articles that were discovered by Mr. Vogt in the Archives of Yale University Library. We intend to publish all of them in successive batches. The first seven of these “Short Stories on Wealth,” prefaced by a short introduction, can be found in the present issue.